


Narcissa Protective

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Wednesday One-Shots [25]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassins & Hitmen, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Crack, F/M, Gen, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-04 20:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: As Harry and Draco head into their third year, Narcissa finds more and more varied uses for her skills than she ever knew she could. And if that includes intimidating Severus Snape, a werewolf, Sirius Black, and a rat…it’s not like this is this weirdest year she has ever had.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The third in the Narcissa series! As usual, warnings for crack, violence, and manipulation.

****“Like this, Harry.” Narcissa patiently stretched her foot out and flexed it, studying Harry’s technique. She shook her head a second later. “No, that won’t work. That looks as if you’re trying to snap your foot in half, not make it more flexible.”

Harry looked at her. “I can’t see the difference between what you’re doing and what I’m doing.”

“Try again.” Narcissa patiently moved her foot in the right direction again. She had never had a student in the discipline before, and it was a learning experience for her as well as Harry. “See the way that you’re extending your toes too far? You need to make sure that you’re properly limber, not that you’re limping around on a foot you’ve stretched as if it was made of taffy.”

“Oh. _Oh_!” Harry grinned at her and suddenly moved his foot the right way. “Yeah, I understand. This is brilliant!”

Narcissa smiled at him and stood up, spending a moment drying off her hair with a towel. She studied Harry’s hair critically as she did so. While he kept it short, he would not have the same problems that some assassins did, with it being so thick it slowed them down or caught on things, or so long that it gave enemies a handhold in battle. Narcissa allowed her hair to remain as delicately flowing and swirling as she did now only because she was mostly retired.

“You’re such a good teacher.” Harry had climbed to his feet, but was wobbling like a new Abraxan foal while he gazed at her with worshipful eyes. “So much better than Snape.”

Narcissa blinked. “I had thought that Professor Snape was a genius at Potions.” That was mostly what Draco talked about, when he talked about professors at all.

Harry paused, and a blank mask dropped over his face. “I’m sure he must be.”

“I’m the one who taught you that mask, Harry,” Narcissa reminded him calmly as she moved up beside him and casually blocked the way out of the room. In a few years he would know six different ways to get around her and twelve ways to disable her while he did it, but a few years was not now. “Tell me what you mean.”

“He just—he’s a _git_.”

“Informative.”

Harry sighed. “He hates me because I’m a Gryffindor and I’m James Potter’s son. He makes fun of Neville all the time because he can’t brew the way Snape wants him to. But Snape never _says_ how he wants us to brew! He just flings a potion at us and expects us to get it the first time! Maybe that’s okay if you’ve already had special tutoring, but I haven’t and Neville hasn’t.”

Narcissa considered the matter as she led Harry to the dining room, where the house-elves had prepared cool drinks and small amounts of bland food for them. In truth, she didn’t care that much about Longbottom. He wasn’t important at all to Draco, and he wasn’t one of Harry’s close friends. She had intimidated him without a thought a few months ago so that he would stop asking Harry whether he was a real Gryffindor.

But Severus harming one of _her_ boys was a different matter.

“You know that the school is unlikely to hire another Potions professor,” she said, when she had drunk exactly two-thirds of her glass.

Harry sighed and stared at his soup, moving his spoon around in it. “Yeah, I know. Look at the trouble they’ve had keeping a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I just have to put up with him, I suppose.”

Narcissa reached out and put her hand on his. “Never have that mindset. It is unworthy of a young man who can accomplish whatever he puts his mind to.”

Harry looked up at her with wide eyes. “You want me to kill him?”

“You are not skilled enough,” Narcissa said absently. “And he _is_ a good Head of House to his Slytherins. No, I am going to make sure that he keeps his mind on his work instead of tormenting you from now on. I know a weakness that I can use against him.”

“How can you keep him alive and still get him to stop torturing me?” Harry shook his head so hard that his hair flopped about his face. “I think it’s his favorite pastime.”

Narcissa opened her mouth to answer, but Draco called, “Harry!” from the stairs then, and Draco’s wishes took precedence. Narcissa was pleased to see that was the case for Harry as well as for herself; Harry turned around with a beaming smile and scrambled out of his chair, conversation forgotten.

Perhaps best not to share this weakness with Harry, in any case. He might have found the methods she intended to use…distasteful.

*

“You know that Sirius Black is Harry’s godfather.”

Narcissa glanced up. She had been revising her plan in her mind, making sure there were no other pieces she needed to add to it. She thought it best to intimidate Severus before the new school year began. “I know. Does he seem upset about it?”

“He seemed upset no one told him. I would have, but I honestly _did_ think he knew,” said Lucius rapidly, looking away from her.

“I don’t blame you for not telling him, Lucius. I didn’t think of it, either.” Narcissa stretched thoughtfully. Well, she would be going along to the school this year to keep an eye on the boys after all. But she would act on Severus first. “Do you mind terribly taking Draco and Harry to Diagon Alley alone? I have something I need to do.”

“Something I should know about?”

Narcissa smiled at him. That was enough to tell Lucius the answer. He went pink and buried himself behind his newspaper.

Narcissa did end up looking at the memories in the Pensieve one more time before she left, just to make _absolutely_ sure she could imitate the voice the right way. Lucius had more memories of the particular person she needed to imitate than she did, and so did a few people she’d contacted for favors.

The spells themselves were child’s play to wrap around herself, and so was the Apparition. Now she only needed to wait until she could catch Severus alone.

*

“Seeeeeeverus…”

“Who’s that?” Severus demanded, and spun around, dropping his teacup and whipping out his wand in the same motion.

 _Still sloppy technique,_ Narcissa thought dispassionately as she made sure the glamour was wrapped around her face, along with her voice, and that the levitation token around her throat was functioning properly. She had to have her feet looking as if she was floating at least a few meters off the floor. _He could step back, cut his foot on the teacup’s shards, and get distracted.  
_  
“You know very well who ‘that’ is, Severus,” Narcissa whispered in her disguised voice. “The person you’ve tried so hard to forget. The person you _can’t_ forget. I thought you would admit to _remembering_ me, at least.”

Severus backed up a step, but his grip on his wand was still firm when he _did_ cut his foot on a shard of the teacup. Narcissa only watched as he hopped and cursed, and then she felt the moment was right and released the Disillusionment Charm that had shielded her.

Severus tripped, this time, and lay on the floor shivering under the weight of her gaze. Lily Potter’s gaze, made misty and silvery by the spells Narcissa was using that let her appear as a ghost.

“Lily,” Severus breathed.

“Summoned from the grave by your dishonor,” Narcissa whispered. The hardest thing right now was to keep her voice under control, and not only because of the glamour. She and Lily Potter had cared about very, very different things. “How _could_ you treat my son the way you do?”

Severus fought his way to his knees and shook his head. “You don’t understand, Lily! He’s exactly like Potter, _exactly_! He wants to get in trouble all the time, and he laughs at Slytherins, and he plays pranks—”

“Tell me what pranks he’s played.” Narcissa was certain she would have heard if Harry was a big prank-player. One of the boys wouldn’t have been able to resist bragging about it.

“He’s stolen from my stores—”

“I don’t think you keep up proper wards if that’s true, Severus.”

“And he laughs at Slytherins! He revealed he was a Parselmouth last year and then used that to prank some Slytherins!”

“Did he, Severus? Or did he wait around the corner from where some Slytherin bullies were planning on ambushing a first-year Hufflepuff and hiss so loudly that they ran away?” Narcissa _knew_ how that one had played out; Harry had told her everything.

“There’s no evidence they were going to bully—”

“Don’t lie to me, Severus. I see _everything_ , now that I’m dead. The revenge in your heart. The way that you would have found some way to hate Harry, because he looks so much like his father.” Narcissa softened her voice. “Except that he has my eyes. You couldn’t bring yourself to be polite to him, for my eyes?” She knew about Severus’s obsession with Lily Potter’s eyes from Lucius’s stories of the man ranting, drunk, about them in Death Eater meetings.

Severus looked as if he might run away or vomit. He _still_ didn’t notice the blood dripping from the cut on his heel. It was so sloppy that Narcissa was reversing some of her former good opinion of him. “I didn’t—I didn’t—”

“There’s so many things you haven’t done that I could spend hours reciting them.” Narcissa made her voice a little crisper. “But we’re not going to do that. Instead, you’re going to start treating my son better from now on, Severus. I know you have the ability to do that. I know you have a kinder heart than you pretend.”

Actually, Narcissa had no idea if that was really true, if he was _this_ sloppy. People could afford to have compassion when they weren’t clumsy enough to cut themselves on shards of porcelain.

But it was probably something Lily Potter would have believed, and more, something Severus would have _liked_ her to believe of him.

“I—I’ll do what I can. But I’ll still assign him detention if I catch him playing a prank.”

 _After this summer, I will be very disappointed if Harry gets caught._ But Narcissa pursed her glamoured lips and nodded. “That’s acceptable. But that’s different from yelling at him when he’s done nothing wrong and calling him names. You have no idea what his life was like before Hogwarts, Severus. He lived with my sister—”

“He _what_?”

Narcissa sighed and let her head hang. Apparently that was a sore point, and Severus had known Lily Potter’s sister. Well, that was acceptable, and she could adapt her plans on a moment’s notice. “Yes. Of course, it seems the one who placed him there was Dumbledore, and he’s beyond even _my_ reach now. But it was horrible.”

“Of course it was,” Severus whispered, sounding stunned.

Narcissa turned her head as if she’d heard a distant call, and shook it. “I have to go, Severus. I can feel the place I’ve been tugging me back even now.” She smiled at him. “Please try to be kinder to my son, and to yourself, if only for my memory’s sake.”

She turned and drifted “through” the wall, in fact a complicated movement of a prepared spell that released the glamours on her and cloaked her in the Disillusionment Charm again. She heard Severus cry out behind her, a choked sound of loss that made her shake her head a little in disapproval.

Severus was not an effective teacher if he was so caught up in those memories. She would have to keep a closer eye on him when she was in the school to protect Draco and Harry.

*

“Are you coming along in your Animagus form?” Harry was stretching properly this time, and he turned around in the next second and flung a knife at one of the targets on the far wall with such precision that Narcissa applauded.

“How did you know that I had an Animagus form?” Narcissa knew neither Lucius nor Draco would have tattled.

“It just seemed like you would.” Harry turned around and beamed at her. “A practical skill and all.”

Narcissa smiled. “Well, unfortunately, my Animagus form is one I can rarely use. It is neither small nor stealthy. I have used it only twice on missions, when I would otherwise have been trapped and a brief burst of power made my pursuers back off. It would be as useless at Hogwarts as it would everywhere else.”

“Then _how_ are you going to be there?” Harry walked over to a bar on the wall and started scrambling up towards it, a look of wild determination on his face. “It doesn’t sound like it’s going to _work_.”

Narcissa watched his form for a moment, decided it would do, and nodded. “One of the Hogwarts professors owes me a favor. I am going to join the staff as her apprentice—in a younger glamour, of course—and do some of the tedious work of marking essays and the like, while keeping a watch out for Black.”

“I thought you would come along as the Defense professor, Mother.” Draco lounged into the room and leaned against the wall. There was nothing casual, however, about the way that his eyes followed Harry’s form as he performed chin-ups on the bar.

Narcissa turned her head away to hide a smile, and replied, “Unfortunately, I found the Headmistress had already hired someone for the position.” Someone she would have to keep an eye on, as well. Honestly, Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress of Hogwarts had fewer advantages over Dumbledore than she had imagined possible.

“Who?” Draco didn’t care that much about the answer, obviously, but at least he was subtle about his appreciation of Harry’s sweaty, red face.

“A man named Remus Lupin,” Narcissa answered smoothly. “Apparently, also one of Black’s best friends—and the Potters’.”

Harry went still for a moment. Then he went on picking up the towel to wipe his face. Narcissa smiled, with a pride she couldn’t drain. “Really? And he never came to check on me or see what my life was like?”

“I can make no excuses for him,” Narcissa admitted, and glanced up as she heard a faint clang from upstairs. Apparently Lucius had discovered the spell locking him into his bedroom. Honestly, he shouldn’t have defended his actions in serving the Dark Lord last night. “However, I will say that he would not have been legally able to take care of you. He is a werewolf, and they are strictly regulated.”

“A _werewolf?_ And he’s going to be around _me_?” Draco’s voice squeaked.

Narcissa turned around and eyed him sternly. “Draco, what have I always told you?”

Draco took a moment to grasp what she was asking before his head drooped, and he sighed. “Mother will take care of it.”

“Yes. A werewolf teaching in the school is no different. You know I intend to be there this year to protect you both from Black. Why would it be any different when it comes to your werewolf Defense professor?”

Draco looked down and traced his boot over one of the cracks in the floor. “It wouldn’t,” he said finally, when the silence had gone on for some time.

Narcissa nodded and swooped over to kiss the top of his forehead. “It will be well, Draco,” she said, when Draco looked up at her again. “I will _make_ it be well.”

Draco finally nodded and shuffled out of the room, with one last glance at Harry. “Lunch is in half an hour,” he said, probably because he didn’t want Harry to spend all of his day in training sessions with Narcissa, the way he sometimes did.

“If werewolves can’t adopt children,” Harry asked when the door had shut and he’d mopped off the last of the sweat from around his eyes, “why can they be around them as professors at a school?”

“Legally? They cannot. But the Headmistress was reduced to a bare number of candidates, and selected this Lupin as the best of them. She doesn’t intend to tell anyone about his status. He also attended the school as a student without anyone knowing of his status,” she added, and watched Harry’s eyes widen.

“That’s—kind of irresponsible.”

“It was. But it was the previous Headmaster’s decision, and unfortunately McGonagall is continuing his absurd legacy in some ways.”

Harry was thoughtfully silent as he finished drying the sweat under his clothes, this time with a charm. Narcissa was adamant that he should know both magical and physical ways of doing all the things she showed him. Finally he asked, “What professor are you intending to go in as an assistant to?”

Narcissa smiled as she opened the door of the training room. “You can figure it out, Harry. With your training? I would be ashamed if you could not, as fast as you are progressing.”

Harry tilted his head. “Well, you already said she was female…and it can’t be Professor McGonagall because she’s really not teaching this term…”

Narcissa nodded. Apparently McGonagall’s replacement as Transfiguration professor was competent, if not incredible. “From there? I’m sure that you can figure this out, Harry. Don’t strain yourself.”

Harry rolled his eyes and strode out of the room. Narcissa followed with a faint smile. She did wonder if he would figure it out before they went back to Hogwarts. He had enough clues at his disposal that he _should_ , but he was also young, and male. It remained to be seen whether he was more like Draco or more like Lucius.

*

“Hello, Aurora. I’m Flooing you to claim my favor.”

“Narcissa _Malfoy_? I never owed—”

“I had brown hair and glasses at the time, and I killed that infestation of bats you let loose in the cave where you went to study a certain kind of white stone.”

Aurora Sinistra’s shoulders slumped. A second later, she nodded. “All right. What do you want?”

“A simple favor…”


	2. Chapter Two

Narcissa walked lightly into the hospital wing, eyes fixed on Harry lying on the bed nearest the door. Draco stood next to him, his face pale. He looked up at her and his eyes closed briefly, even though Narcissa wore the brown hair and glasses of her disguise and the boring, dusty robes required of an apprentice in Astronomy.

 _I am glad that he still trusts me to make everything all right._ Narcissa hadn’t been able to keep the Dementors away from the train. But she would make sure that they didn’t bother her boys in the future.

“What happened?” she asked softly. “Mr. Malfoy? Did the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher drive them away?” That was what some of the rumors she had heard as she came up the stairs said.

While Draco described Harry’s intense reaction to the Dementors, Narcissa studied his still face. He hadn’t had an easy life, and that might be one of the reasons he had fainted.

No matter what the reason was, however, she would _end_ it.

“Excuse me, who are you?”

Narcissa glanced up. The amber-eyed man in the door of the hospital wing was probably Remus Lupin. She smiled and stood, holding out her hand. “I’m sorry, you wouldn’t have had the chance to meet me yet, of course. My name is Lilith Smithson. I’m an apprentice in Astronomy to Professor Sinistra. I have a hope of teaching it someday.”

The man’s nostrils flared delicately as he shook her hand, but Narcissa hadn’t met him before, so her scent would tell him nothing. And she was wearing glamours that would disperse her scent anyway. “Do you know Harry?”

 _Better than you, who has done nothing to claim the right to use his first name._ But Narcissa only smiled a little and said, “Oh, I was at Hogwarts in my first year when his parents were in their seventh. I admired them from afar, you know. The way one does. And when I realized that Harry Potter was in the hospital wing…”

“He’s going to be fine. He’ll wake up and eat some chocolate, and that will be enough.” Lupin shouldered past her as he went to the bed. He was patting Harry’s hand and saying, “Harry? I mean, Mr. Potter?”

Draco glanced up at her in swelling indignation. Narcissa patted his hand in turn to subdue him. Yes, Lupin was ridiculous, and it seemed that he didn’t even intend to call Harry by his first name when he was awake.

But Narcissa was here to prevent danger to her boys, and right now, she didn’t think Lupin was an immediate danger. The Dementors were obviously worse.

_And Cousin Sirius._

_That_ was a conundrum she hadn’t yet solved.

*

Narcissa’s eyes flicked open. She had felt one of the wards she had placed around the edges of the grounds triggered. It meant someone of Black blood was nearby and neatly captured, and since she didn’t expect Regulus to come back to life or Bellatrix to fight her way out of Azkaban or Andromeda to show up apologizing any time soon…

She rolled smoothly out of bed and padded up the stairs just outside her door. Sinistra had seemed bewildered when Narcissa had wanted the quarters right at the top of the Astronomy Tower, even though it was the traditional place for apprentices to sleep, but she had obviously never looked over the grounds at night, only at the stars. From here, Narcissa could see _everything_.

Narcissa lifted a telescope to her eye. No one would consider it unusual for an Astronomy apprentice to have a telescope, of course. No one else would realize that she’d modified it to see her wards triggered instead of the stars, either, but that was their problem.

There. The bright white ground-star flared against the dark edge of the Forbidden Forest. It had been nearly a month since term started. Narcissa was a little surprised that Sirius hadn’t tried to sneak into Hogwarts before this.

If his desire to kill Harry was sincere. Which she had to admit she doubted. Imprisoned Death Eaters, including her own dear sister, were mostly loyal fanatics who wouldn’t have cared about timing or overwhelming odds. They would simply have busted in.

Of course, Sirius might have inherited more of her own discipline and intelligence than Bellatrix’s madness. But running away to live with the Potters didn’t argue it.

Narcissa charmed her clothes the dark grey that would slide in and out of shadows best, and then reached down and drew up one of the almost invisible ropes that hung down the side of the Tower. In seconds she was climbing down, sliding when she could, but always holding her heels clear of the stones. The last thing she wanted was for someone to wake up now to investigate suspicious scrapes or rustles.

Once she reached the grounds, it was a swift stroll to where Sirius thrashed in her ward. She did pause when she realized she had caught a large black dog, and not a human being at all. Then she smiled.

“It’s nice to see that the Animagus form of _someone_ in the family was useful,” she said, and unwound the glamours that covered her. They were anchored to a brooch on her cloak so that she could put them back on merely by twisting the brooch. “Hello, Cousin Sirius. It’s interesting that you want to kill Harry, but I’m afraid I can’t allow it.”

The dog stared at her and snarled. Narcissa listened for a moment, but so far only the snarls filled the night, not the whispers she always associated with Dementor cloaks. She shook her head and ended one of the coils of the ward so that Sirius could sit comfortably on his haunches instead of dangling in the air by all four legs.

“On the other hand, your behavior is hardly typical of a Death Eater. So, do you want to change back and tell me all about it? Or do I have to force you out of your Animagus form?”

Sirius snarled at her again. Narcissa shook her head. “Perhaps you have succumbed to the Black madness after all. Twelve years in Azkaban might do that.” She waved her wand and intoned the charm that would disrupt the Transfiguration Sirius had worked on himself, forcing him to return to human form.

Sirius yowled in indignation as he turned. Narcissa smiled. “Maybe you should have been a cat instead.”

“It’s freezing and I’m naked!”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before sneaking into the school.”

“What are you _doing_ here, Narcissa?”

“I’m here to protect my son. And Harry, since he’s become a close friend of Draco’s and one of my children.”

Sirius stared at her, and then burst out laughing. Narcissa studied him in cool silence. It went on and on, and she nodded a little. Yes, Sirius was decidedly not as sane as he’d been before Azkaban.

“Merlin,” Sirius finally said, when Narcissa went on watching him and not moving. “You’re serious. No, wait, that’s me,” he said quickly, before Narcissa could say anything. “And even if Harry is your ward, you can’t mean anything good for him.”

“I do wonder why not.”

“Be—because!” Sirius hiccoughed a little, and Narcissa wondered if he’d got drunk before he came to make this easier for him. “Because your husband is a Death Eater and you’re a Death Eater’s wife.”

They were getting nowhere with this. Narcissa sighed. “I want to know what _you’re_ doing here, Sirius. I want to know what you think you can do now, by bringing Harry down. Your master is years gone.”

“ _I’m not a Death Eater_!”

Narcissa winced a little at that screech, which meant Sirius had told not only her but most of the inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest, and said, “Oh, really? Even though you’re cousin to a Death Eater’s wife?”

Sirius’s glare showed that he’d lost his sense of humor in Azkaban, too. He yanked his left sleeve up and showed his bare arm. Narcissa waved a hand. “Why don’t you try answering my question, instead of making proclamations?”

“Peter Pettigrew is alive. He’s the real traitor. He’s here. I saw his picture in the paper. I’m going to kill him.”

Narcissa turned her head. The Dementors were coming, as she knew from the gathering chill in the air around her shoulders. _Tiresome._ She didn’t feel like interrupting her interrogation of Sirius to assuage their qualms about their ugliness.

She flicked her wand and touched the amulet around her wrist that she had spent the past month preparing. It worked by feeding off the light of the moon and stars. Sometimes, pretending to be an Astronomy apprentice was worth it after all. When the amulet responded with a white spark much like the one that had showed on the grounds when Sirius fell into her trap, she took it off and laid it on the ground.

“We’ll have to see if that’s true,” she told Sirius, and cast a series of rapid spells that tightened the ward around him, trussing his arms and legs behind his back, and gagged his mouth. “We’ll return to the school and have a talk, and in the morning you can point Pettigrew out to me.”

Sirius thrashed and raged, but Narcissa didn’t intend to listen. She turned and waited for the first Dementor to come within range of her trap.

Although she could feel there were probably a good fifty approaching through the Forest, only one came close to the amulet. It was pushing its cloak back with its filthy hands as it did so, and although it glanced at her, its attention was fastened on the man she held prisoner.

Luckily, the presence of the Dementor made Sirius slump in his bonds. Narcissa glanced at him. She could do without the drool, but one couldn’t have everything.

“What are you waiting for?” Narcissa asked softly, looking back at the Dementor. She hoped the one who had made Harry faint was here. Or, if not, that word would get back to it soon, through whatever methods the Dementors used to communicate.

After long moments of hesitation, the lone Dementor in the front came towards Sirius. Its mouth was visible now, a sucking thing working in and out of the darkness.

It passed over her amulet.

In a second, silvery light erupted from the amulet and grabbed the Dementor and tugged it into a whirl of motion. Narcissa watched, smiling, as the lanky black form of the Dementor grew thinner and thinner, turning into a shadow that spun down into the amulet like water going down a drain.

She looked up to find the rest of them staring at her.

“It’s a simple matter of trapping a Patronus and binding it to an amulet,” she told the Dementors. “By now, your companion has been annihilated.”

Very carefully, a few of them edged behind the nearest trees.

“It will happen again if you come near me,” Narcissa told them softly. “Or if you come near Harry Potter or Draco Malfoy. I know that you can recognize individual humans.” They couldn’t negotiate with the Ministry or distinguish between Azkaban guards and prisoners otherwise. “Leave them alone.”

A few more Dementors edged between the trees as Narcissa picked up the amulet and tucked it back into a pocket. Then she gathered Sirius and made him float behind her as she strode once more towards the Astronomy Tower.

The Dementors drifted carefully out of her way. Some of them were watching her back. Narcissa simply kept walking.

Like natural animals, they sensed fear. Narcissa would die in shame before they could suck out her soul if that was actually the case.

And she had no bad memories for them to feed on. She had never done anything that wasn’t perfectly justified, or made a mistake that she hadn’t made up for later.

*

“Have you decided that you want to talk yet?”

The black dog turned its head in the other direction and sulked.

Narcissa shrugged, slid a bowl of food through the low door of the cage she was keeping him in, and then left to attend the Wednesday night Astronomy class, the one that both Draco and Harry were in this year.

*

“Out with it.”

“What?” Harry’s head jerked up. He’d been punching the target in front of him with a steel glove that Narcissa had made for him over his hand. He blinked at her and pushed his glasses up his nose. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been acting differently in the past few training sessions.” Narcissa leaned back on the floor and flexed her leg above her head, wriggling and kicking her foot when it was at its fullest extension. She’d had to hold it in an odd position on most of her climb down the Tower, and now she was paying the price for that. Of course, she would have had to pay a much greater price if she hadn’t been in good shape. “Your breathing quickens, and you turn away any questions I ask you about Lupin or Professor Snape or if you’ve been wandering around the corridors at night.” She flipped herself over with a sinuous twist of her body and looked at him across the mat that she’d laid on the floor of her office. “Out with it.”

“How can you tell that much just from the way I _breathe_?”

Harry sounded aggravated. Narcissa smiled. “Because of my training. The same training that I’m giving you now.” She nodded at the glove he was sliding off. “Weapons are only a part of it, and you know it. The much more important training is using your _head_.”

Harry paused, tense, for a long second, and then sat down. “I know.”

Narcissa waited, using the moment to calculate angles from which she could throw knives into the walls. He stayed quiet for almost five minutes. But in the end, Harry wasn’t nearly as stubborn as Cousin Sirius.

“I got a map,” he said softly. “A map that shows the school corridors. They—I mean, someone gave it to me.”

 _Just as someone gave you the Invisibility Cloak for your Christmas present two years ago._ But Narcissa kept herself calm and relaxed. The Cloak had almost certainly come from Dumbledore. He could not possibly be the source for the map. “Would you like to tell me their names?”

“Just someone I know. They—I mean, he said I might need it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Narcissa lowered her head a little. “Harry, as far as I know there is no artifact capable of showing all the corridors of Hogwarts. I assume that you mean it includes the secret passages?”

“Yeah.” Harry was studying his fingers raptly.

“Then I don’t understand why you told me the map exists, and even what it does, but you won’t tell me the names of the people who gave it to you. One is incredibly important, dangerous information. The other is—what? What do you think is going to happen?” Narcissa listened to the way his breathing sped up, and then thought she understood. “Or what do you think I am going to do?”

Harry’s head flew up. His eyes were bright and frantic.

“Tell me,” Narcissa said, and at the moment she didn’t care if she sounded most like a mother or most like a professor or most like a mentor in assassination techniques. What mattered was that she knew this was the tone that would make Harry tell her the truth.

And Harry did. “I saw on the map that you were keeping Sirius Black a prisoner in your rooms,” he whispered. “Why? What did he do? And if it’s just that he was a threat to me, what are you going to do to anyone _else_ you think is a threat to me?”

Narcissa moved forwards and hugged him. Harry sat stiff and trembling in her arms for a long minute, and then he relaxed enough to duck his head against her chest and hang on as though someone was trying to tear him from his iron grip on her.

“I’m sorry,” Narcissa said softly. “I should have told you. If I’d brought you to him earlier, then maybe he would even have told me what he meant about Peter Pettigrew being the real murderer.”

Harry blinked at her. Narcissa pushed his glasses up for him and smiled. “I caught Sirius in a trap ward I set out on the grounds when I first came here. It was meant to catch someone of Black blood. He told me that he didn’t really betray your parents, that it was Peter Pettigrew, the wizard he supposedly killed. I wanted to hear more about that. But he can turn into a dog, and he’s been a dog since that night. He refuses to talk to me. I think he believes me to be a Death Eater.”

“So—he’s in your quarters because you don’t want anyone else to know you have him?”

Narcissa inclined her head. “And because, if he’s right and Pettigrew is somewhere in the castle, I don’t want word to get out that Sirius is here, too. Pettigrew might flee and hide better than he already has.”

“Okay.” Harry nodded against her. “I can accept that. But let’s go talk to Sirius now. I’m sure that he’ll want to talk when he sees me.”

*

“You keep him in a _cage_?”

“He is a dog,” Narcissa said mildly, and shut the door behind Harry. “Not a natural one, but one guided by human intelligence. If I left him free, I am absolutely sure he would cause a mess in my quarters and chew up everything he could get his jaws on. Yes, I keep him in a cage.”

Harry just looked at her, and then sighed. “Point.”

Sirius had changed back the instant he saw Harry, although he crouched over on his hands and knees so that he wasn’t exposing his nakedness to his godson—something Narcissa appreciated. His voice was low and urgent. “Harry, she’s a Death Eater. You need to get out of here as soon as you possibly can. Find Dumbledore and—”

“She’s training me, Sirius. She’s my foster mother. And Dumbledore died about a year and a half ago.”

Sirius looked no wiser with his mouth open all the way, Narcissa thought. She shook her head a little. It would be easier to know how intelligent Sirius was, or how mad Azkaban had driven him, if he would act the same way for five minutes in a row.

“But—I would have heard about that.”

“You said that Pettigrew’s alive and that he’s the real traitor,” Harry told him. Sirius eagerly nodded along. “But you never broke out of Azkaban for twelve years? Why not, if you knew he was alive?”

“I didn’t know until I saw a picture of those friends of yours on their holiday.”

Harry looked just as mystified as Narcissa for a minute. Then he snapped his fingers and said, “That’s right, the Weasleys went to Egypt this summer, and there was a picture about it in the papers. But what are you talking about? I’ve met almost all the Weasleys. Pettigrew’s not a Weasley.”

 _But,_ Narcissa thought, and shifted a little to arrange her legs more comfortably beneath her, _I would wager that the ones who gave you that map are. Because I saw the way you looked at me from the corner of your eye when you said it. And your breathing sped up again._

“Peter learned how to be an Animagus, too. Just like me and James.” Sirius’s face was heartbroken. “His form was a rat.”

“ _Scabbers_?”

“Who is Scabbers?” Narcissa asked quietly. Cousin Sirius was still looking at her dubiously, but at least Harry would talk to her.

“Ron’s pet rat.” Harry was shaking his head a little. “I can’t believe it. So you knew that he wasn’t dead, and you broke out of Azkaban and came here to—what? Force him to transform back so that you can turn him in?”

“No. I was going to kill him.”

Narcissa sighed. _Poor Cousin Sirius. He isn’t a professional, so I suppose I can’t really expect him to have any idea of professional ethics. But it’s so_ sloppy.

“But _why_?” Harry looked the very picture of bewilderment, which meant he had picked up on more of Narcissa’s lessons than she had thought he had so far. “Why would you do that, when you need him alive to prove that you’re innocent?”

Sirius laughed, and it was wild, with a howl at the end of it. Spending so long as a dog might have had an effect on him even if Azkaban hadn’t, Narcissa judged. “I never even got a _trial_ , Harry. If I took Peter to the Ministry, someone would just make him disappear. Probably in embarrassment. Nothing’s going to change unless I kill him. And that will give me a lot of satisfaction, and avenge James and Lily—he was their Secret-Keeper, not me, I persuaded them to switch at the last minute, _I killed them_!”

His sudden scream made Narcissa glad of Silencing Charms she had spent hours building into the walls of her quarters. Really, some people had no sense of _decorum._

Justice obliged her to admit that she wouldn’t, either, if she had spent twelve years in Azkaban for something she didn’t do. But then, the point was that she would never have been captured in the first place.

_So sloppy._

“But now you have us,” Harry said eagerly. “That means we can help capture Pettigrew, and then you can take him to the Ministry, and—”

Sirius was shaking his head. “There’s the same problem of someone making him disappear. Besides.” He was watching Narcissa warily. “I know that she can’t be planning to kill you right away or she would have done it before I was here to stop her, but she’s still a Death Eater. What is it, Narcissa? You’re keeping him to turn him to the Dark?”

“No. I’m keeping him because I’m his foster mother, and he’s my ward, and I love him.”

Harry beamed up at her. Sirius noticed it, and his face contorted. “So. You’re not just keeping him so that you can turn him to the Dark, you’re doing that and tricking him at the same time!”

“She’s not tricking me,” Harry tried to argue, but Narcissa, watching Sirius’s face, put her hand on his shoulder. She doubted her cousin was stable enough right now to listen to anything Harry said, especially if he had decided it was all a Death Eater plot.

“I’m not loyal to the Dark Lord any more than you are, Sirius,” she said, and pulled back her sleeve as he’d done, so that he could see her bare arm.

Sirius sneered. “That means _nothing_. Some of the worst people I ever knew weren’t the Marked ones, because You-Know-Who wouldn’t have allowed them into his inner circle.”

“You must make up your mind, Sirius. Either I am a trusted Death Eater raising Harry like a lamb for slaughter, or I am an unmarked supporter who has no reason to feel that much loyalty to the Dark Lord.”

Sirius only gave her a look of unanswerable loathing and turned his back, flopping over so that he rested with his head pointing towards the far end of the cage. A second of stomach-twisting power, and he was a dog again.

“So you won’t let us tell anyone about Pettigrew?” Harry asked. “You won’t tell people that you’re innocent even if we capture him?”

Sirius shook his head to each question, and let out a loud _Woof_ at the last one, as if to tell Harry to give up.

Harry gave Narcissa a helpless look. Narcissa bent down and kissed his hair. “Don’t worry, Harry. What do I always tell Draco?”

Harry relaxed. He knew she would take care of it when she put it like that. He hugged her and left the room.

Narcissa could tell that Sirius was on the verge of peering over his shoulder at her. She raised her eyebrows. “Well? Is there something you’d like to say?”

He uttered a sound that might have been either another bark or a whoof of air, and turned around again.

Narcissa sat down and studied his back. She either had to come up with a way to persuade Sirius that she didn’t follow the Dark Lord, or she had to come up with a way to cleanse the Ministry sufficiently that they would accept Pettigrew and believe what had happened even without Sirius’s willing testimony.

She wasn’t sure which one was the more worthy challenge of her skills.

*

“Miss Smithson, can I talk to you?”

Narcissa had been away most of the day, on Lilith Smithson’s “personal business,” which was actually doing some shopping in Diagon Alley, checking on the house-elves at Malfoy Manor, and making sure Lucius hadn’t had any ideas since she last saw him. She stepped back now and let Draco into her office, smiling down at him. “What can I do for you, Mr. Malfoy?”

Draco stood there, stiff and tall, with his hands clasped behind him, until she got the door shut. Then he exhaled and whispered, “Can you take the glamour off, Mum? _Please_.”

Narcissa nodded and twisted the brooch to remove it. Then she led Draco over to a comfortable chair near the fire and began to make hot tea and bread with butter. It was obvious he needed it. “What’s the matter, darling?”

“I—got a letter from Father today,” Draco said. His face was averted. “You know that I only got an Exceeds Expectations on my last essay from McGonagall.”

“Yes, I know,” Narcissa said. “You told me that you forgot to mention one obvious conclusion from the chapter that would have supported what you were saying better.” She had trained Draco not to make such mistakes, but of course they would still happen. She was more interested in making sure they did not happen _again_.

Draco nodded, staring at his hands. “The thing is—Father thinks it should have been an Outstanding. He told me that. I’m glad I was alone when I opened the letter. I—it was almost a Howler.”

Narcissa sighed. It seemed Lucius had got ideas, after all, and she would have to take care of that when she returned home. “I’m sorry, Draco. You know that Father and I sometimes disagree on the way we’re raising you?”

Draco blinked up at her. “But I thought both of you agreed on how important manners and marks and all the other good things are.”

“Yes, but not always how you achieve them. I know that next time, you’ll write the conclusion into your essay.” Narcissa reached out and gently touched his cheek. “Lucius thinks you should go back and change the past.”

“But I couldn’t even do that if I had a Time-Turner.” Draco’s brow was furrowed. “It’s too long ago now.”

“I know. Your father is not always rational.”

Draco abruptly relaxed. “Does that mean that you’re going to take care of it and see that this doesn’t happen again, Mother?”

“It does.”

Draco stood and kissed her, something he hadn’t done since last summer when he declared he was too adult for that kind of thing. He would still accept the ones she had initiated, but they weren’t as important to Narcissa as this kind were. She resisted the impulse to touch her cheek as he stepped away. “Thank you, Mother.”

“Yes, dear. If your apology from your father hasn’t arrived by tomorrow, please let me know.”

Draco smiled at her and slipped out of her office. Narcissa peacefully sipped her tea and watched the fire, and thought of all the people she needed to intimidate.

Honestly, the list was getting long, which was a sign of her own sloppiness. Ah, well. In the morning she, like Draco, would make sure that the mistake would not happen again.


	3. Chapter 3

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Madam Bones.” Narcissa smoothed down her robes over her legs and darted a glance at the woman behind the desk before lowering her eyes.

Amelia Bones had pursued Narcissa more than once for crimes she’d committed. Narcissa knew her, well. Amelia would understand nervousness better than she would the quiet confidence Narcissa used in most other social situations as Mrs. Malfoy, and she believed that almost everyone had something on their consciences.

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Malfoy.” Amelia laced her fingers on the desk, as Narcissa could see when she peeked out from under her lashes. “Now, what is this about? It’s unusual that someone of your standing would want to see me in such privacy.”

“It is, but…” Narcissa swallowed. “I think when you hear what I’ve come to say, you’ll understand. It’s about my Cousin Sirius.”

Amelia’s face hardened. “You must understand that we have no choice about pursuing him. He broke out of Azkaban—”

“I know, but he’s still my cousin.” Narcissa bowed her head further, made her hands clasp tighter. “It’s hard to reconcile the boy I played with with the deranged fugitive in search of Harry Potter.”

“I’m sure it is. But you must understand that this happens all the time. The vast majority of criminals give warning signs that can only be understood in retrospect. Or we would catch most of them sooner.”

“I know that, Madam Bones,” Narcissa hastened to say. “I am trying to reconcile myself. But I wondered if it would be possible for me to see his trial transcript from immediately after the war? I’ve never read it, and I didn’t attend the trial as my son was sick and I was rather preoccupied with him at the time.”

“Hmmm.” Madam Bones was peering at her. Narcissa was sure she was remembering what _else_ someone would expect to preoccupy the Malfoy family at that time, Lucius’s trial as a Death Eater, but Narcissa remained still and small. Amelia finally said, “And you think reading that would help you reconcile yourself?”

“Yes. He must have said such _dreadful_ things in his trial. I know he did in the street after he killed Pettigrew and those Muggles. If I could see that, I think I could replace my image of him with the real one.”

“It’s a bit of an unusual request, of course, but it’s not sealed. I suppose there’s no reason not to let you see it. Wait here, and I’ll fetch it for you.”

“Thank you, Madam Bones. I do appreciate this.” Narcissa sighed. “With one sister of mine in prison, and the other estranged from me, Sirius and I are all that’s left of our generation of Blacks. I suppose I’m still seeking a way to reconnect with my past. But it’s better to overcome an attachment to the past than to preserve it.”

“When it’s like this, certainly.” Amelia stood up and left the room, shaking her head a little. “It was a shock to all of us when Sirius turned. I’d rather like to see it myself, now that you mention it. One moment.”

Narcissa didn’t let her meek expression falter while Amelia was gone. She wouldn’t put it past the woman to have observation spells in her office that would record the reaction of anyone who visited when she wasn’t there. But she did entertain herself with thoughts of what Amelia would say if she knew that the “Tolstone Butcher” and the “Black Butterfly” and the “Shadow over Hogsmeade” were all the same person, and waiting for her to come back with a trial record.

She made sure to flinch back in her chair with surprise when Amelia banged into the room, her expression forbidding and her stride long. “There is no trial record,” she announced, and sat down in the chair behind her desk so hard that she nearly rattled her monocle out of her eye.

“I don’t understand,” said Narcissa, blinking. “You mean it’s been mis-filed somehow?”

“No. I mean that it is _gone_.” Amelia’s hands writhed on the sides of the desk. “It doesn’t exist. Apparently Sirius Black never had a trial. When I couldn’t find the records, I got in contact with Bartemius Crouch, who was Head of the Department at the time, and that is what he told me.” She obviously fought for control, her nostrils and eyes both bulging for a moment. “How they could have sentenced a fellow _Auror_ to trial without working out exactly how he had betrayed the Potter and what other secrets he might have compromised….”

“Excuse me.” Narcissa adopted the haughty expression that, in colder shades, worked to convince Lucius that he _really_ didn’t want to do what he thought he wanted to do. “Do you mean to tell me that my cousin was simply thrown into Azkaban?”

“Crouch said that they assumed he was guilty because of his confession when the Aurors captured him.” Amelia snorted, a bitter sound Narcissa thought a gorgon might have been proud of. “All he said was, ‘I killed them.’ Yes, a confession _in_ deed.” She turned to Narcissa. “You may rest assured that I am going to countermand the Minister’s order that Black be Kissed on sight. We have to know what is going on! We have to know that he’s _actually_ guilty!”

Narcissa nodded. “I see. Thank you, Madam Bones.” She hesitated as she stood. “Perhaps some of the young cousin I knew still survives.”

“I don’t know if it would have survived Azkaban,” Amelia said shortly. “But you’re right that we need to look more clearly at our pasts.”

Narcissa nodded again and quietly left the room. She had known all along there was no trial record, of course. Sirius had told them that much—or told _Harry_ that much, his head carefully pressed against the side of the cage so that he could look just at Harry and pretend she didn’t exist.

But she did so enjoy letting other people discover the truth for themselves.

*

“You’re not going to turn him to the Dark,” Sirius said, his gaze fixed on Narcissa.

“Oh, really?” Narcissa lifted her head. She was reading the _Prophet_ that had the front-page story about the Ministry discovering Sirius had never had a trial, but other than a choking noise when she opened it, Sirius had said nothing about it. He was too busy staring at her and coming up with dark conspiracies she could use Harry for.

“No. You’re keeping him so that you can have him marry Draco and gain control of the Potter properties!”

Narcissa began to laugh, something she tried not to do in her dealings with Sirius, because it would put him off further. “You think Harry would simply sign his properties away to anyone?” she gasped, when she could breathe again.

“You would _make_ him. And Draco would—make him.” Sirius sounded a little less certain about that, probably because he’d never met Draco. But he sat back in his cage and folded his arms and nodded about it.

“I am so flattered that you think my son that accomplished in seduction, Sirius,” Narcissa said dryly, making Sirius splutter. “But no. I want to make Harry’s life better. If _you_ cannot believe that, it’s not my problem.” She folded the paper and held it out to him. “Amelia Bones is saying now that you deserve a proper trial. Wouldn’t that be easier if they had the _actual_ culprit to use Veritaserum on?”

Sirius turned his back and scowled at the far side of the cage. Narcissa had made it bigger since he’d started spending more time in human form, but at the moment, he simply turned into a dog and thumped down, still from his head to his tail.

Narcissa shook her head. She would not succeed with Sirius with these tactics. She would have to talk to Harry.

*

“But what’s going to happen to Sirius over Christmas?” Harry asked her anxiously as they stepped into the Manor. Narcissa had offered to “escort Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Potter home,” since she supposedly knew the Malfoys in her guise as Lilith Smithson, and they’d just come through the fire. Narcissa dropped her glamour and reached out to touch Harry’s forehead with a smile before replying.

“I’ve brought his cage along. The house-elves will be taking care of him in a room upstairs. I’ll show you which one later, and you can visit him whenever you want.”

“All right!” Harry said, his face brightening. He raced off with Draco, who was already saying something about counting who had more gifts under the tree. Narcissa rolled her eyes. They had exactly equal numbers of gifts, of course, something Draco should have anticipated already.

“Narcissa.”

Her husband was hovering near the doorway of the sitting room, his face pale. Narcissa smiled at him. “ _Dear_ Lucius,” she said, and moved towards him. “You’ve behaved since the Howler I sent you, which mitigates your punishment. Somewhat.”

Lucius swallowed. His face was the color of the marble in the hearth behind them now, down to the slight tint of pink on his cheeks. “Really?”

 _Pettigrew will probably squeak much the same way when we move to take him,_ Narcissa thought, and smoothed her hand down his cheek. “Yes. But there still remains a debt to be paid. You still _distressed_ Draco.” She leaned in to speak into his ear, not-so-incidentally letting her lips brush the lobe of his ear. “What kind of punishment do you think you deserve for that?”

His answer involved no chains, but it _did_ involve indulgences that Narcissa was willing to grant him. She laughed and dragged him upstairs. He stumbled behind her, keeping his eyes on the flashing movement of her lean, strong legs under her robes that swayed and parted.

Narcissa had cast that glamour just for him. Never let it be said that she did _nothing_ nice for her husband.

*

Harry had listened to her, and he was ready to start his persuasion on Sirius after the orgy of gift-unwrapping that was the typical Malfoy Christmas. Wrapped in the new robes that Narcissa had got him—with hidden pockets and slits so that he could hide and kick things unexpectedly—Harry entered the room that Narcissa had given Sirius.

She went with him, of course, and so did Draco. Draco had been told the truth when it became obvious that they would have to bring Sirius home with them. He was giving Sirius a highly unimpressed look from the doorway.

The black dog ignored them.

Harry sat down in the carpet between the guest bed that formed the centerpiece of the room and the cage, and began to talk. “Did you know that until I started getting new robes from Mrs. Malfoy for Christmas, I’d never got new clothes before? I just wore whatever my cousin did. They were the people Dumbledore put me with, the Muggles. I didn’t know that I was _worthy_ of new clothes. I was so surprised when I saw the pile of presents just for me…”

And on it went. Narcissa managed to detach herself from the litany and listen. Draco was scowling from his position. Narcissa shot him a look.

Draco swallowed and wiped the expression from his face. Narcissa nodded gently at him. Yes, it was hard to listen to Harry recite the awful conditions he’d been subjected to. But reminding Sirius they were there would just get in the way of Harry, hopefully, talking her stubborn cousin into working with them.

By the time Harry had got to how he had to make worse marks in school than his cousin, the black dog was facing him. Harry paused to take a breath. The dog whined softly.

“Sorry, just my throat is dry,” Harry apologized, and he reached out a hand without looking. A house-elf appeared and handed him a glass of iced pumpkin juice. Harry took a swallow and went on. “And the one teacher who did think I could be smart, well, all that had to happen was she visited Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and heard about how much trouble I caused, and she never…”

Sirius sat back further on his haunches as he listened. Narcissa did much the same thing, mind drifting tranquil and relaxed, although she would remember the pertinent details of what Harry said for later. Draco joined her on the bed and curled up next to her, and that seemed to soothe some of his agony.

Harry finally stood up and looked at Sirius and said simply, “Mrs. Malfoy took me away from all that. I know you don’t trust her, and maybe you have your reasons, but what _I_ know is that she’s keeping me from being helpless. She always takes care of the problems that I ask her to, Sirius. She’s the one I want to live with.”

Narcissa wondered if that was a wise thing to say. Surely Sirius would want his godson to live with him, if his name was cleared. But Sirius’s eyes were huge and soft, and he only watched as Harry walked to the doorway instead of trying to call him back.

Or changing to human, but Narcissa suspected that would come in time.

Draco kept silent until they shut the door. Then he looked at Harry and said, “I thought you would keep talking until he understood you.”

“It has to be in stages,” Harry said calmly. “He’s too stubborn to be convinced right away. This way, I can talk him around and he’ll half-think that it’s his own idea before the end.”

Narcissa smiled. Harry had learned patience well.

“Okay.” Draco paused, shifted his shoulders, and then grabbed Harry and held him. Harry blinked, and his eyes shot to Narcissa. Narcissa spread her hands. If Harry thought there was a poison or strike that would get him out of this, he should have learned his lessons better. Patience was only one.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Draco whispered, his voice choked. “I know that you don’t really care about someone going and getting revenge on your relatives—”

 _And there is my son. It’s not that he doesn’t want vengeance, it’s that he wants to do something that will_ matter _to Harry._

“But I want you to know that I’m going to _remember_ it. And Mother isn’t the only one who’s going to try to make up for that, okay? Just the only one that you need to talk to Black about.”

“Er, all right,” Harry said, and his sharp blinking made the way Draco broke away from him with a firm nod and started steering him down the stairs all the funnier. Harry looked back at her with as eyes as big as moons.

Narcissa only followed with the cat-like smile that had driven Lucius crazy when he was courting her in school. She had envisioned, more than once, Harry as her replacement for Draco’s protector when she was gone. Now she thought they would be more likely to take care of each other.

Not that even an unbalanced relationship would be the same as hers and Lucius’s. For one thing, Draco was considerably smarter than Lucius.

For another, neither of them had yet demonstrated the taste for punishment that Lucius did.

*

“All right.”

Narcissa blinked and looked up. Sirius had been keeping her company in his cage, as was usual for this time of evening. For a moment, her mind hovered so much among the essays she was marking in her position as Sinistra’s assistant that she could not imagine what he was talking about.

Then she did, and smiled as she pulled back her chair from the desk. “Do you want me to fetch Harry?”

“I—yes. He deserves to be there to see Wormtail captured.” Sirius stared down at his clenched hands. “Just knowing that I could have been there to spare him a childhood with Vernon and Petunia if I’d only taken my responsibilities _seriously_ ….”

Ah. So it was the tale of what Harry had escaped from that had captured him, more than the tale of what he had escaped to. Narcissa refrained from shrugging. She could work with either. “Wait here, then.”

It was the work of twenty minutes to find Harry in the library, where he was studying with Draco, and lead him back to her rooms. Draco insisted on coming, too. Since Narcissa had no intention of depriving either of her children of a taste of triumph, if they wanted to share it, she let him.

Sirius looked raptly at Harry when he came in, but it was Narcissa he spoke to. “And you think Amelia Bones would _really_ make sure I was given a trial?”

“She just said it again in the papers last week. She blames herself for never having realized you weren’t given one until now.”

“All right.” Sirius shut his eyes and melted into dog form. Narcissa opened the cage and conjured a leash and collar for him, and then led him, Harry, and Draco out of her offices and towards Gryffindor Tower.

“Do you know where Weasley’s going to be?” Draco asked Harry quietly.

“I do think it’s the Tower,” Harry muttered back. “He was in the library earlier, but he only stays there as long as Hermione and I make him.”

 _Last year, it would have been for as long as Granger alone made him,_ Narcissa thought, and smiled a private smile.

Sirius trotted beside them until they got to Gryffindor Tower. Then he pulled at the leash and growled. Narcissa reached down to smack his nose. He stared at her.

“By all means, keep up the noise if you want to warn Pettigrew that we’re coming,” Narcissa told him.

Sirius shrank down by her side and whimpered, which was nearly as exasperating as all the rest. But Narcissa merely rolled her eyes and waited while Harry gave the Gryffindor password.

The students turned to stare at them when they climbed through the portrait, making Narcissa grateful once again for her disguise. She maintained an icy expression on her face and asked, “Where is the youngest Mr. Weasley? Please tell him to come here at once. And to bring his rat.”

One of the boys Narcissa didn’t know shot up the stairs, while the other Gryffindors murmured excitedly among themselves. Probably assuming that Weasley had got into trouble by bringing his rat to class. Narcissa waited with a remote expression that kept the children from questioning her, and pulled Sirius’s leash slightly until he moved behind her. If Pettigrew ran because he saw a black dog, they would have to put in the effort of a tedious chase.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Weasley came down the stairs, staring at her apprehensively. The rat was in his hands. Sirius promptly went mad and lunged out from behind Narcissa, barking and snarling. Of course that snatched the leash from her hold, and the rat leaped from Weasley’s hands and dashed towards the open portrait hole as another student came in. Sirius ran straight after him, and Draco and Harry joined the chase.

Narcissa looked up at the ceiling in silent question as to why she was the only sane person in this world, and then followed.

Pettigrew wove a winding course, attempting to throw them off the trail, but Sirius, either because of his sense of smell or his hatred, stayed close behind. Pettigrew did make it down five staircases and past six or seven different doors before he ran under one of them. Sirius promptly scratched at the door and started yelping hysterically.

There was a crash, a splattering noise, and the sound of shocked cursing from behind the door. Narcissa frowned and looked at Draco. Draco panted at her, “This is Professor Lupin’s office.”

Narcissa spun back just as Lupin said in a strained voice, “If you could stay out…?” She cast a _Tempus_ Charm and cursed softly as she watched the numbers form. Near moonrise.

“We really need that rat!” Harry yelled through the door. He had to raise his voice and yell twice to be heard over Sirius’s insane barks.

“I—fine, I’ll give it to you. But I need you to go to Professor Snape and tell him that I need more Wolfsbane, that my potion has been knocked over by the rat, all right?” They heard Lupin move what sounded like a piece of furniture, and then enraged squeaking. If the rat bit Lupin, there was no sound of his reaction.

“I promise,” Harry said eagerly.

With a sense of inevitability, Narcissa watched the door open and Lupin hold the rat out. His eyes widened at the sight of her, and still more at the sight of Sirius. “What—”

Pettigrew tried to leap from Lupin’s hands the way he had from Weasley’s, but Narcissa cast a Summoning Charm. She pulled the special cage she’d prepared from her robe pocket and tucked the rat into it.

As if in slow motion, she watched the fur bristling alongside Lupin’s face, his head arched back, his toes flexing out as his arms grew and turned into legs. Sirius’s bark of welcome turned into a yap of alarm, and he flung himself at the newly-turned werewolf. But Lupin threw him off with a single shrug and spun towards Draco and Harry, the light of madness in his eyes.

Narcissa sighed. Of course this would happen, because she was the only sane one here.

And of course she would have to use the one talent that would do any good in this situation. She twisted smoothly to bring her body between Lupin and her boys, and called on her magic.

The Animagus transformation flooded down from her mind and over her body, lighting silent fireworks of magic along her body. She could feel her skin breaking for the fur, her head lengthening and growing upwards, her teeth curving, her hands becoming almost all palm, her balance wavering as her center of mass shifted. The only blessing was that she didn’t have to feel a tail growing.

And before Lupin could finish his lunge, the enormous Kodiak grizzly she had become swatted the werewolf with one paw and watched him fly back through the door.

Sirius tried to pile into the room after Lupin, which made Narcissa wonder where one drew the line between stubborn and stupid. She snatched him back, spilling him rolling and wheezing into the corridor and the far wall. That didn’t matter. What mattered was the werewolf in front of her, nearly back out of his room.

Narcissa stuck her head down in front of him and roared as loudly as she could.

The power of the sound reverberated in the corridor and probably the stomachs of everyone in the castle, and certainly the werewolf’s skull. Lupin stumbled, from shock or pain. Narcissa didn’t care which. Again she swiped at him, and Lupin flew a good five meters, to the other side of his office. In the meantime, Narcissa seized the doorknob of the office in her teeth, pulled the door shut, and reverted to human form so that she could cast some powerful, and dubiously legal, locking charms on it.

Howls and clawing came from the other side. Narcissa turned around, cast _Reparo_ on her robes, and said calmly to Draco, “If you would fetch the Headmistress, please?”

They got their wits back enough to do what she asked. Narcissa turned around to look at Sirius. He was limping and staring at her with huge eyes.

“ _That’s_ how you handle these things,” she told him. She checked to make sure that Pettigrew was still all right in his cage, and he cowered. Well, from what she knew of him, that was hardly surprising.

She could see how the future would unspool from here. The Headmistress would deal with Lupin, and probably find some excuse to retain him as a professor for next year. Acceptable, in light of certain things he would learn to understand. If necessary, they would report her Animagus form to Sinistra, who would say that of course her assistant was registered, but preferred to keep her form quiet. They would find an excuse for how the dog who had shown up and convinced Miss Smithson to feed him was really Sirius Black, and take the rat to the Ministry. Sirius would have his trial and be freed, and would remain part of Harry’s life.

It did not mean that he would take _guardianship_ of Harry, of course. Anyone stupid enough to jump at a werewolf in dog form wasn’t worthy of that.

“Miss Smithson?”

Harry’s voice was low. Narcissa finished readjusting her robes and her glamour and turned to him with a smile. “Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“You—you said that your Animagus form wasn’t very useful.”

Narcissa let her smile broaden. “Not useful for stealth. I never said that it couldn’t be useful in other ways.”

“Oh.” Harry looked at the floor, and then back up at her.

His eyes shone with admiration. Narcissa patted his head.

Sirius _would_ be there for Harry. But he could never come between them.


End file.
